On Monday, April 2, the Obama administration will publish its proposed rule (PDF) to amend the immigration system to allow certain “immediate relatives” (spouse, parents, and unmarried children under the age of 21) of U.S. citizens to remain in the United States while their immigration applications are processed. The administration will accept public comments on the proposed rule (“Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers of Inadmissibility”) for sixty days, at which point the Department of Homeland Security will review comments and finalize the rule.

Calling it “an affront to basic rights,” law enforcement, civil rights, faith leaders and a Congressman decried Arizona’s SB 1070 and urged the Supreme Court to maintain a lower court’s order blocking the law’s most pernicious elements from going into effect. SB 1070, which the Arizona legislature passed in April 2010, was, at the time, considered the most draconian anti-immigrant legislation in the country. The individuals who participated in a telephonic news conference explained why they or their organizations chose to make the Supreme Court aware of their opposition to SB 1070 by filing friend-of-the-court briefs.

The National Immigration Law Center and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to review a National Labor Relations Board decision denying back pay for workers who were fired after complaining about unfair working conditions at Mezonos Maven Bakery in Brooklyn, New York.

The National Immigration Law Center mourns the passing of John Payton, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Known as one of the most adept members of the Supreme Court Bar, Payton led the Legal Defense Fund to take on some of the greatest civil rights challenges in recent decades, including the fight to ensure that all people, no matter where they were born or the color of their skin, were not denied their Constitutionally-protected rights. He is survived by his wife, Gay, a prominent civil rights attorney.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit today blocked two key sections of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law pending a final ruling on the appeal. The ruling comes several days after a civil rights coalition and the U.S. Department of Justice presented arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, arguing the Alabama anti-immigrant law should be blocked. During the hearing in Atlanta, civil rights attorneys told a panel of three judges that the law fundamentally conflicts with federal law and systematically violates the rights of U.S. citizens and immigrants with and without lawful status. The coalition of civil rights groups that sued against the law said today it was pleased the court considered its renewed pleas to block provisions pending the appeal based on harms the law is inflicting.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard arguments from civil rights attorneys in the legal challenges to Georgia’s and Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant laws. A panel of three judges were told that the laws, Georgia’s HB 87 and Alabama’s HB 56, endanger public safety; invite racial profiling of Latinos, Asians, and others who appear foreign; and interfere with federal law.